2 TRAVEL. 



me into the harbour of Rio. I gazed with admiration round 

 the rocky scene studded with islands ; I made an excursion 

 with him to the Organ Mountains, and then soon afterwards 

 I found myself wandering in the treeless plains of Buenos 

 Ayres, as complete a contrast from the primeval forest of the 

 Amazons as could well be conceived. Moreover the heat at 

 Para was frequently oppressive, but the cool bracing air of 

 the Pampas invigorated one with fresh life, and, but for the 

 difficulty of accustoming one's self to Paraguay tea, there 

 seemed no draiwbacks to the country. 



Oddly enough, before retracing my steps across the 

 Atlantic, the Rev. L. L. Noble took me for a cruise amongst 

 icebergs, (I had seen Mr. Church's painting exhibited in the 

 German Gallery in Bond Street,) and I had an opportunity 

 of entering the harbour of St. John's, Newfoundland, and of 

 exploring many a pleasant creek on the coast of Labrador. — 

 Thence home — but soon I found myself at Newcastle, and 

 here Mr. Wallace took hold of me, and conveying me to the 

 eastern Archipelago, bid me notice how, as we passed through 

 the islands of Sumatra, Borneo and Java, the Fauna showed 

 but ordinary changes commensurate with the distance we 

 had passed ; but then taking me to the eastern shores of Bali, 

 be pointed out that in the next island, separated only by a 

 distance of 15 miles, (little more than half the distance 

 between Dover and Calais,) but by a deeper sea than those 

 between the previous islands we had passed, the Fauna 

 imderwent a total change— that in short we were in one 

 Continent so to speak, and that in the island of Lombock 

 began the great Continent of Australia. Next I found my- 

 self at Frankfort-on-the-Main, conversing with Professor 

 Frey and Senator von Heyden, on the insect Fauna of the 

 Alpine valleys ; both had so recently quitted the Alps that 

 their conversation seemed to smell of the mountains, pro- 



